


Fox Priest

by Reavv



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Folklore, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Secret Identity, Shinto, Supernatural Elements, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reavv/pseuds/Reavv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something forgotten is remembered. Someone lost is found. Power is only as good as how you use it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I not sorry for starting a new fic before finishing any of my old ones. That's what all the cool kids are doing.

He’s not crying. He’s not.

He’s a big boy now, even has his own room in the orphanage, and that means he’s not crying. It’s just that it’s dark, and he was supposed to be back by supper but he’s not sure how he’s ever going to find his way to the orphanage now.

He’d been playing by the training grounds for the older kids, watching people throw kunai at marked targets, when a few of the shinobi in training had seen him and opposed to his presence.

So here he is, in the dark, after having run away from the bigger kids with the sharp weapons. He had been laughing as he ran, but now, as he takes note of his surroundings once again, he has to force back a sniffle.

He’s in a forest, lush and overgrown. It’s hard to see where he is going in the dim light, and he keeps tripping over tree roots and rocks. His left knee is scraped and vaguely stinging.

And it’s getting cold.

Despite that, he is not crying.

He rubs one grubby hand against his eyes and tries again to find the path. He’s not sure what use that is, since he’s not sure there ever was one in the first place, but he’s not sure what else to do. The Matron will be so angry with him if he doesn’t get back soon, and he’s sure he won’t be getting any supper.

That had been the reason he was outside in the first place, after all. Because the Matron had been angry with him sneaking into the kitchens to steal away food.

He’d been so hungry. He’s always hungry. Even now there’s a cramped feeling in his stomach.

He trips, again, and goes tumbling down a small hill. He cries out in shock, even if the pain fades quickly. A bird watching on a nearby branch rustles dark feathers and takes flight.

“Ow,” he mumbles, rubbing his face. He’s rolled into some sort of clearing, broken stone steps leading farther into the darkness.

He blinks and grins.

A path! Finally. He pushes himself up and moves forward, not questioning his good luck.

The path doesn’t lead towards the village though. He pushes through the darkness and sees a small, broken structure nestled in between two large trees. A broken archway leans to one side, the stone carved with something that is now too worn away to read even if he could, and vines creeping along everywhere.

“Oh,” he mutters in disappointment, kicking a stray rock. He then shivers at the breeze and turns a wary eye at the dark sky. The moon is just visible.

He glances back at the small building and shuffles in place. On one hand, he really should continue to search for the road. On the other hand, he’s tired and it’s cold out.

He wanders slowly in, passing under the archway and keeping a curious eye out.

“What is this place?” he wonders, sliding the cracking shōji doors open and peaking inside. Dust motes float by, ticking his face, and the floor looks broken and rotten. The walls are in relatively good standing, and the roof intact, so he shrugs and walks in.

The ingrained habits from the orphanage have him nudging his shoes off, even though he regrets it as soon as his bare feet hit the floor. It’s a small building, big enough for some sort of entryway and one room behind that, so when he closes the crumbling shoji doors against the wind it’s no longer freezing.

With the last fading light he scrambles into the most stable looking corner and curls up into a ball, his overly large clothing serving well as a makeshift blanket. Sleep comes quickly.

—

Dark eyes watch as the small child settles into sleep. A white tail swishes back and forth in contemplation.

“An odd human, to have slipped past the barrier,” a voice says in thought, sharp teeth flashing in a grin.

A white snout lifts into the air.

“Smells strange too,” another voice answers.

Identical shapes stand guard over the night.

—

Naruto wakes up to light streaming through the cracked shoji door and yawns. He blinks a few times and rubs his grumbling belly, before sitting up.

Now that he can see a little better, the building looks to be in better shape than he originally thought. The walls are a muted orange, peeling in places and cracked, with crumbling scrolls attached. Weeds are poking out of the floor, but what looked rotten in the darkness turns out to be relatively intact.

In the middle of the otherwise barren room there’s a small altar with nothing on it. Rice paper is peeling off of its supports, but even the windows look like they were decorated at one point.

It looks old, and abandoned, but not decrepit. In fact, as he steps out of the building, the green crawling along the stone arches and pillars looks almost magical.

It’s peaceful, and secret looking. It makes him feel like he’s stumbled upon something amazing, that at any moment he’s going to tumble into a hidden kingdom and have to save a princess.

He grins. 

He slips on his shoes and starts his exploration. There’s a patch of overgrown dirt to one side, having maybe been a garden at some point, and a moss covered well in the very back. It’s too tall to peer into. 

There’s some crumbling stone by the archway, looking to have at some point been statues before time and weather had worn down their shapes. 

That’s about it. 

“Huh,” he mutters, a little disappointed. He had found nothing to indicate a secret society, or magical princesses. Unless they were at the bottom of the well.

Still, it was a cool looking place, and one that was obviously abandoned. Which just meant that it was free to claim. A lot of Naruto’s things used to be abandoned too, from his clothing to his toys. 

He nods his head. He’ll come back, but first he really needs to find the village and get some food. Maybe by now the Matron will have forgotten her anger at him and he can sneak into the building for lunch. 

He scrambles down the path he followed last night, passing back under the archway, and sees that the stone continues further uphill. The sunlight filtering through the leaves shows that if he had only gone the other way he probably would have made it back to the main road. 

He starts whistling a tune he heard from one of the orphanage workers and keeps walking.

—  
He comes back the next day, stumbling through the thick forest until he finds the path again. From the road you would never know that there’s something in the forest, the dense leaves hiding the path until you are right upon it. 

He has his backpack with him this time, stuffed everything he could think important for a secret base. This meant his ratty stuffed frog, the crayon stubs he’d been hoarding, loose scraps of paper, two packets of instant noodles, one extra pair of pants, and a bucket. 

He swings himself over a downturned log and into view of the stone archway. A grin breaks out on his face and he scurries forward, ducking under low branches and vines. 

“Helloooo—” he calls out, more so he can hear his voice echo across the clearing then because he expects an answer. He’s used to talking to himself. 

He drops his bag on the ground in front of the building and starts yanking things out. His frog, named aptly Gama-chan, gets put gently down on a small rock sticking out of the ground. The crayon stubs he organises by colour on the ground.

He pats his knees and looks at one of the large trees overlooking the clearing. It’s much larger than the ones he’s climbed before at the academy, and much wider than the spindly one in the orphanage courtyard.

He climbs it. He can’t even reach the first branch, so he has to resort to overturning his bucket and standing on that first, but he’s eventually able to pull himself up to the first branch and hang his pants at the end of it. 

He nods to himself decisively. It might not be the prettiest flag in the world, but it does its job. 

Climbing down is a lot easier, since he just jumps and rolls like they have been teaching at the academy. 

He still ends up banging his elbow on the way down, but he laughs it off and grins. 

He scrambles back towards his bag and unrolls a few sheets of paper, pinning the ends with some pebbles lying around. 

“Well Gama-chan, what’s the game?” he lays down on his belly and grabs a green crayon, scribbling a little frog face in one corner. Last week they had played Shinobi and Nuke-nin. Of course, since they didn’t have anyone else to play with they had ended up roping in one of the orphanage supervisors by stealing his orange book. The man might not have realised he was playing with Naruto, but that wasn’t the important part.

This time, he thinks he wants to try being the shinobi.   
“A princess?” he asks the frog, switching out for a pink crayon and scribbling a lump that might, if you squint, represent a princess. 

“We can rescue her from, uh, from the evil—” he switches colours again, this time for a murky brown, trying to think of who can be the evil overlord, “—the evil food stall man.” 

Last week one of the merchants in the market district had thrown fruit at him when he didn’t leave quick enough. 

He draws a box to symbolise the food cart around the princess and nods. He looks at Gama-chan and frowns determinately. 

“We gotta be, be sneaky,” he says, with a finger to his lips. He doesn’t want to be caught, because nothing good ever comes out of people seeing him when he plays his games.

He sketches out some more boxes to represent the neighbouring businesses, gets distracted drawing a crocodile eating one of them, and then hums to himself, rolling over to watch the clouds drift by. 

He’s trying to think how he can save the princess, but he’s not even sure what would be the princess in this situation. Not the food, since people buy that all the time and you don’t buy princesses. No, it has to be something precious, and unique. 

He rolls back over and looks at his lopsided map. 

“Stall man, stall man, stall man…” he sings, thinking. Food stalls have food, and people selling food, and little pots with shiny coins. And banners with things written on them. 

His eyes widen, pushing himself a little and looking at Gama-chan. 

“The sign!” he cries out, giggling. 

He quickly scribbles a box on top of the original one, and circles it a few times. Next to that he draws a frowning stick figure waving its fist. He nods resolutely. 

“That doesn’t help you figure out how to steal it in the first place,” Gama-chan says. Naruto gasps and pokes the plush animal in its bulging cheek. 

“Yes it does! We go there, all shinobi-ee and, and sneaky. And then! BAM! Rescue the princess.” 

The dead and shiny eyes of Gama-chan glint. 

“You’re going to get caught if you do that. You should think about how you are going to ‘BAM’ ”   
Naruto hums, picking up the frog and looking at it closer. 

“You’re so smart Gama-chan. How come the other, other animals don’t talk?” he asks, tilting his head. Some of the other children at the orphanage talk about ‘invisible friends’ but that’s silly, because Gama-chan isn’t invisible. 

The frog plushie is silent. 

Naruto sighs and puts it down again. Gama-chan doesn’t talk all the time, seems to only when he’s alone and talking to himself in the first place. He never says much when he does either. 

He looks down at his map and frowns. 

“I’m a shinobi. Tha’ means I’m gonna rescue the princess like a shinobi,” he continues, grabbing one of the crayons, “which means, uh—” 

He’s not quite sure exactly how shinobi go about doing missions. He’s not sure it’s ever been mentioned in class, can only remember stories about big battles and the shinobi rules. 

“—which means I gotta’ be like a shinobi,” he finishes. 

—

“The frog smells like a youkai.” White fur shifts, eyes glinting. “I wonder if it would taste good.”

“It was probably attracted by the smell of the boy and got trapped in the thing he loved most. Must have been a weak spirit to have mistaken a human for a frog,” the other voice muses, tail waving in thought. 

A snort. 

“A pitiful snack, you mean. Pity, there hasn't been any offerings here in what seems like centuries.” 

—

Mission ‘save the princess’ goes off mostly without a hitch. He muddies his face and hair in a puddle and waits until the stall is really busy. The crowd of people serve to distract not only the merchant, but the nearby shinobi. Everyone is looking for pickpockets and thieves, not virtuous little boys saving princesses.

He considers every hurried customer and watchful shinobi an enemy, people in league with the evil stall man. He tiptoes passed them with his amazing shinobi skills and evaluates his method of attack. The stall and the surrounding buildings are the castle that he needs to overcome.He climbs the building behind the stall, using a couple boxes left in the alley and a convenient drain pipe running up. It takes a good couple minutes to get to the roof of the two story building, and he collapses for a second on the hot tiles to catch his breath. 

Eventually, he reaches into his bag and unwinds the fishing hook and string he got from scavenging from one of the rivers. Peering over the ledge gives him the perfect view of the street and crowd. 

“C’mon,” he mutters, lowering the line 

The banner is bolted into a wooden post, but not very well. A couple tugs on the hook has the frayed fabric ripping off. It’s bigger than he is, but it’s also made out of cloth so it’s easy enough to pull up. 

Of course, a giant moving banner is not very subtle, so he only just gets it up over the ledge before yelling bursts out from below. He rolls it up and scrambles away, climbing down the drain pipe he originally climbed up on. 

The heavy crowds means the merchant can’t leave his post, but he knows shinobi will be after him soon if he doesn’t hide. 

Getting the cloth in his bag is impossible, and he doesn’t try. Instead, he runs off towards his hideout. 

“Little brat! Come back here!” the vendor yells at him, waving his fist in the air very much like in Naruto’s drawing. 

He giggles. 

A few people try to chase him of course, but the surprise and confusion gives him a head start that he desperately needs. He has short legs. 

He bursts through the leaves of the forest and trips over a root sticking up. He and his precious ‘princess’ go tumbling down. 

“Oh no!” he cries, scrambling after the bolt of cloth. The princess is unhurt, and with a sigh of relief he picks himself up and heads deeper inwards. 

He passes back under the stone archway and smiles up at the moss-covered stone. 

“I’m back!” 

From within the small building Gama-chan snorts. 

“I guess you got away then, pity.” 

Naruto pouts, dumping his bag on the ground in front and kicking his shoes off. He opens the shōji doors and peers in. 

“That’s mean, Gama-chan!” he complains, eyes looking for the small plush. He eventually finds it sitting a few feet from where he last left it, and he picks it up.

With Gama-chan in one hand and the banner in the other, he starts evaluating where he should hang it up. 

Eventually he decides that the pants in the tree, although a valiant effort, need replacing. He drops Gama-chan back onto its rock and swings the banner over one shoulder. He’s able to climb the tree a lot faster this time, and it takes no time at all until he’s switched them. 

Back down on the ground, he dusts his hands off and hums in thought. He has no idea what it says, but it looks nice and proper, even with the fish hook dangling down one side. 

“Perfect!” he declares, spinning around and grinning at Gama-chan. He rifles through his bag and takes out his paper and crayons. 

“Mission, done,” he declares with a grin, “What’s next?” 

—

“Does that say—”

“Fried Tofu for sale? Yes, yes it does.”

“Huh, maybe the kid knows something after all.” 

—

It’s getting late, shadows growing long through the rustling leaves. Naruto kicks his legs about as he lays on the ground, a pile of paper and crayons scattered around him, and he sighs.

“I gotta go back,” he finally mumbles, kicking at the dirt. 

“Or you could not,” Gama-chan says. Naruto rolls over to look at it. 

“What d’ya mean?” he asks, tilting his head. Gama-chan is once again silent, and he sighs again. 

He rolls over to watch the darkening sky and hums in thought. He could stay, he supposes. He’s done it already, but he doesn’t think the Matron would like that all that much. 

She’d been pretty angry at him earlier, not because she was worried so much as because she’s very meticulous about routines. 

He stretches out and sits up, gathering all his things. He hides the papers under the raised board in the building, and leaves the bucket where it sits by the tree. Everything else goes in his bag, Gama-chan on top. 

He stops right under the archway and looks at the small clearing with a grin. 

“Be back soon!” 

—

Naruto has been going to the Shinobi Academy for as long as he can remember. He’s not that good at it, has a hard time concentrating and can never stay still, but it’s a lot of fun. They get to climb trees, play organised games and listen to really cool stories about shinobi. The teachers don’t seem to like him all that much, and he doesn’t have any friends, but that doesn't matter to him.

He’s becoming a shinobi, which basically means the coolest thing ever. 

He’s also younger than a lot of his classmates, but he doesn’t let that hold him down. He works hard so he’s not called the baby of the class, and makes sure that he stays smiling. 

Which means, a few days after finding his hideout, he’s really surprised when the boy next to him turns around and stares at him in suspicion.

“You’re not planning something dumb, are you? You’re smiling a lot.”

Naruto blinks. 

“No—” 

“Kay,” the boy interrupts, turning back towards the front. Naruto huffs and puffs out his cheeks, turning back to fidgeting in his seat and doodling Gama-chan in his notebook. 

The notebooks stay in class, and his in particular is bent and ragged. 

The teacher stops talking and he looks up, noticing that people are starting to put things away. He hurries to shove the book and pencil in his desk and stands up with the rest of the class, bouncing on his feet.

Rolling class is next. Rolling class has an actual name, but he doesn’t remember it. It’s the one where they get to do a lot of somersaults and get pushed off of things so they can learn to fall properly, and it’s probably his favourite class. 

His neighbour glares at his bouncing and he sticks his tongue out at him in answer. 

“Ok class! We have a special guest coming to show us some shinobi techniques. Everyone line up and behave now,” the teacher yells out, smacking her desk with a ruler. The class settles. 

Naruto edges into his place in the line and tries to look attentive. A lot of time the ‘special guests’ they bring out are boring, low-level nin showing how to throw kunai or start fires. Besides, a demonstration means having to pay attention and is as far removed from rolling class that something outside can be. 

He pouts. 

They trudge out of the classroom, a few students chattering quietly in excitement. There’s a man standing in the middle of the field, and the teacher moves forward to talk to him. 

Naruto zones out. On the other end of the field a few older students are practising jutsu, and he watches with wide eyes as they flicker back and forth, swapping with logs and rocks and, in one disastrous attempt, each other. He’s pretty sure they’ve covered the theory for that particular technique, but he can’t remember its name. 

“—and that’s why he’s going to show you how to set a basic trap,” the teacher says, and he zones back in, interest piqued. 

The nin standing in front of them waves lazily and opens the front of his vest to show an assortment of wires and hooks. 

“C’mon closer, this one’s real easy,” the man says, and they gather round. The group sits down and watches curiously as he starts taking out a bunch of tools and things from the vest. 

Most of it seems to be wire, the metal but thin kind that a lot of shinobi seem to use but that they haven’t been given yet. Naruto eyes it in interest. 

“This here is what makes a good trap work so well, it’s thin and hard to see when stretched out, but strong enough to trip a raging elephant. You guys know what an elephant is? No? Nevermind. The main thing is that you can hook anything with this and make a really basic trap in a really short amount of time,” the man says. Naruto tries to keep up with that, but mostly gets caught up on the fact that the teacher probably said his name but he didn’t hear it earlier.

The man unspools a bit of wire and snips it with one of the tools, so that he has about an arm's length. 

“Ok, so the first step is making sure you have the right amount of wire. You need there to be a certain amount of tension and give in the line, like how string instruments are made. Now we just…” he takes two kunai and stabs them into the earth, stretches the line across them so that one end is tied and the other one loops back, “so this is good enough for tripping someone, but probably not all that great as a trap. Does anyone know how we can make it better?” 

A few hands go up. The man’s eyes crinkle and he nods towards where one of the clan kids is looking superior and smug. 

“Traps have to be hidden,” the kid says, who Naruto realises he also doesn’t know the name of. 

“Yes, that’s true. The most important thing to remember about traps is that the enemy should never see them coming. Even the most simple and basic of traps can result in victory if the setup is done right. But in this case, we’re in the middle of a field, how would you hide this trap?”

The kids all start talking over each other, trying to come up with the best way. Naruto stays silent, staring at the patch of ground the wire stretches across. Something about it looks—off. 

“You, whisker kid. You look like you have an idea,” the nin says with a somewhat malicious grin, nodding towards Naruto. He blinks. 

The class goes silent. 

“Of course!” Naruto yells, mostly as a reflex. He pause and wrinkles his nose. 

“Naruto never has any good ideas, you should ignore him sensei,” a girl with pigtails says, in a nasally voice. 

The nin shakes his head, grin not dropping an inch. 

“No, no, I’m curious, you looked to be in deep thought there.” 

Naruto puffs up, and then deflates a little. 

“Why hide it at all?” he asks, shrugging. The class groans. 

“Idiot!” the girl with pigtails yells, “sensei already said why.”

The nin’s smile widens. 

“He’s right, in this case.” 

The class stills, and Naruto blinks in surprise. 

“I am?” 

The man nods, eyes turned up, and points to the trip wire. 

“When an enemy sees a trap like this, something simple and unhidden, he’s going to think ‘that trap is a trap, there has to be more around’, and then he is going to be scared. A scared enemy will be on the lookout for things that look out of place, like—” he stabs a kunai into the ground in front of the wire, causing the ground to collapse, the thin covering of grass falling away to reveal a pit, “this here. They’ll find the second trap and think to themselves ‘oh, that’s it. I’m safe now.’ ”

A boy with a buzz cut frowns and raises his hand. 

“But what is the point of letting them find your traps?” 

The nin nods, and gestures towards the trap. 

“Would you say that there’s anything else to this? Would you look at this and be scared?” he asks. The class shakes their head. 

Five more kunai go flashing out. Five more pits open up, causing a foot long gash in the soil. 

“That is why. Your enemy will see easy obvious traps, and be blinded to the true trap. Layers are the key to being one step ahead of your enemy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dun

The next day Naruto forages the whole forest for some of the metal wire. He’s been thinking about what the shinobi said, tumbling it in his mind over and over, and he’s still not sure what he thinks of it. It sure sounds a lot different from all the lectures on big shinobi battles and jutsu they always have in class. 

Unless…

Unless the big stuff is just a trip trap hiding the pitfall under it. He frowns and scratches his nose in thought. 

“What d’you think Gama-chan?” He plops the frog on a convenient branch so he can make sure it doesn’t wander away, as it likes to, and contemplates his bounty. Some rusted short pieces, already bent and out of shape, four new blunted kunai, a ripped paper tag, and a cracked ceramic jug. 

“I think you’re an idiot, but maybe less of one than yesterday,” Gama-chan grumps, and Naruto knows if the plush had arms he would be crossing them. 

“I’m not an idiot!” he cries, puffing out his cheeks. The dead, glinty stare of Gama-chan accuses him otherwise. 

“What’s the best bit of being a shinobi, kid? Let me tell you, it ain’t the big battles and the chakra flashbangs. Fighting should be fun, yeah? The big stuff is always boring,” Gama-chan continues, and Naruto stops what he’s doing to look uncertainly up at the frog. 

This might be the most he’s ever heard from the doll in one sitting. 

“Whad’you mean?” 

Gama-chan is silent for long enough that he thinks he might not answer, and Naruto turns his attention back to his pile of junk. 

“Why do you plan pranks against the village people, brat?” Gama-chan’s voice creaks out slowly, as if the toy is thinking. Naruto blinks.

“Uh! Because they’re mean! And I’m gonna be a shinobi and show ‘em just how cool and awesome I am, and then they won’t be mean!” he cries, pointing to the frog in emphasis. From around him, a stirring of a breeze can just be felt, as if the forest is listening in and weighing his answer. 

“Pah! Being a shinobi won’t get you respect, kid. Civilians think of them as bloody monsters, and they are. You’ll just end up toiling under some stuck-up clan and fucking your life away. Nah, you do it for revenge don’tcha? You do it to show them that ‘cha ain’t some weak willed monster they can crush beneath their boots, yeah?” Gama-chan’s voice gets progressively more intense as he talks, and it sounds now like he’s not even talking to Naruto. More like he’s talking to himself. 

“And you do it in secret, because then you can’t be stopped, because then it’s a game. That’s the key, kid: make it a game,” it continues, almost vibrating off of the tree in its enthusiasm. 

Naruto frowns at it in confusion. Gama-chan doesn’t like talking, so if it’s talking this much it must be important. But the teachers at the academy always say how much being a shinobi isn’t a game, despite the games they make them play to learn. 

“I don’t get it,” he mutters, kicking at the dirt under the tree. He stops and squints up at the frog and then smiles. He doesn’t like the teachers anyways. 

“But you’re pretty smart, so I guess you’re right,” he says, and then picks up the suddenly still and silent doll. He shoves the things he’s scavenged from the forest in his bag and then turns towards the trail, walking towards his hideout. 

In the corner of his eye he almost thinks he sees a shadow watching him. 

—

“Interesting, you would almost think it was a trickster with that attitude.” 

“Be a pretty dumb trickster, it hasn’t even eaten the kid’s soul yet.” 

“...Which one?” 

“Huh?”

“Can’t you tell? The kid has two.”

—

Naruto gets to his hideout and surveys his land as a king might survey his castle. The crumbling stone and wet moss makes him feel at home. Here, among the forgotten things, among the broken brick, he belongs. 

“Ok! Time to make up a game!” he cries to the empty ground. A tree rustles gently. 

Gama-chan, sitting on his shoulder, stays silent. 

“A game with traps, like shinobi-san showed. Uh,” he squints at backpack in thought, “but I don’t got nobody to play it against. Haven’t seen lots of the villagers for days.” 

The creaking of the broken shōji doors is his only answer. He looks from the listing, crumbling rice paper, to the overgrown garden, to the weather-worn stone pillars. 

“I know!” he cries, adopting a pose, thumb under his nose. “A shinobi as cool as me needs a secret base just as cool! I gotta, gotta make this place awesome.” 

He nods his head emphatically. 

“That uh, that man with the paper tried to smack me with a bundle of it last week. I bet he’s not expecting any, hah, any games from me now.” He rubs his hands and smiles at Gama-chan. 

“We can fix the door, and then, and then, maybe I can sleep here when Matron is angry, and keep my things here without being worried about losing them.” 

He plops down in the dirt and ruffles through his bag, finding the crayon stubs and paper. 

“Just got to get the paper, yeah? ‘Slike an important treaty that I gotta steal back. Don’t need to even see the paper man, just gotta steal his paper….”

—

It’s six in the morning when a broken wheel causes a disturbance in the market district. Merchants flowing in and out of the village are stuck in the narrow streets as the frantic fruit stall owner tries to fix his cart. The confusion and frustration only get more pronounced when one of the antique owners accuses the second-hand shop behind him of stealing some of his new arrivals. The arguing is loud, and aggressive.

The squabbling becomes so loud that other merchants and shop owners pitch in, and soon there’s a full scale fight happening on the street. The fighting overturns a few carts, and scatters merchandise across the street. Boxes of ripe fruit, delicate jewelry, ink and paper. All of it tumbling under people's feet and down side alleys. A few enterprising individuals take advantage of the chaos and make away with a few new gifts under their collar. 

Shinobi arrive to the scene to find that the chaos has only spread, other venders accusing their neighbours of theft. Some belongings are found in others’ bags, but most of the time it appears to be unfounded. The fighting merchants are separated, the lost items returned, and no one realises that a whole crate of items is missing until the stationary stall owner counts his new inventory and notes it gone. A smiley face winks at him from the missing inventory’s place. 

No one finds out who did it.

—

“Ha!” Naruto crows, hugging his overfull bag to his chest. There’s a feeling in his chest that won’t go away, some sort of mix between joy and fear. His heart thuds in his ears. 

“Ha,” he continues, quieter. He looks at his bag, zipper open and threatening to spill the tissue-wrapped paper. It’s not rice paper, or at least, it’s a different kind. Thicker, smoother. When he had bent it to cram it in his bag, it hadn't broken at all. 

His hands are dirty and slightly scratched, and he’s tired from getting up so early to switch some of the carts’ stuff, and he lost his best bit of rusted wire to tangling the wheels of that fruit cart, but he’s happy. Seeing the confused looks on the shinobi’s faces was a lot of fun, and sneaking around the much larger bodies of the merchants was exhilarating. 

He thinks next time he’s going to try and not let anyone start fighting though, because that was scary. 

“Congrats, you have paper,” Gama-chan grunts. Naruto’s smile widens. 

“Now I can fix the door!” He agrees, ignoring the sarcastic tilt to the plush’s words. 

“Yeah? How you gonna do that?” the toy asks, but Naruto pretends not to hear and scrambles farther into the forest. He was almost caught by some of the investigating shinobi earlier, and he wants to get back to the safety of his hideout. 

He scrambles past the half-hidden archway and plops his backpack at the feet of the steps of the building. He huffs a little at the sudden loss of weight, and scratches his nose again. Now that he’s looking at the doors the idea of fixing them is a lot more intimidating. He hasn’t gotten to where he is in his short life by lack of determination however, so he steels himself mentally and sets about trying to wrestle the large frame away from its rotten bed. 

The door comes peeling away from the wall easily enough, but that only brings its own issue. The grooves where the shōji is supposed to sit are worn away and practically useless, and as he props the large frame against the wall he’s not even sure how he got it to close in the first place. 

“Uh oh,” he mutters, but nonetheless lays out the new paper and sees about lining it up with the old, crumbling rice paper. 

He has just enough, although it’s a close thing and he’ll have to be careful about attaching the paper to the frame since he doesn’t have any to spare redoing it. As he smoothes down curling edges he realizes he also doesn't have anything to attached it with either, and he sits there for a minute in frustration. 

If he thought about that earlier he could have stolen some glue or nails from one of the other stalls, but he didn't, and there's no way he'll be able to go get something now. 

He could try and stick it with his kunai, but he needs those for practice. 

He's sitting there, pout slowly etching itself deeper onto his face, for a few minutes before Gama-chan sighs and interrupts.

“Oh for fucks sakes, give it here.”

“Huh?” Naruto says, blinking up only to see the toy sitting on the edge of the frame. 

The area where the frog’s mouth is stitched rips open, and a translucent, slightly glowing liquid dribbles out.

“Gross!” He says, excitedly. 

The liquid oozes out until it covers the whole panel, creating a thin cover that once fully spread hardens almost instantly, turning invisible. 

“What was that?” Naruto asks, but Gama-chan doesn't answer. The plush’s mouth seals back up, seam turning invisible. 

Figuring that the only answer he'll get is one he makes himself, he stands up and grabs the side of the frame. 

Sure enough, even though the door doesn't have any visible sources of attachment, the paper holds true.

“Cool!” 

-

“...what kind of yokai is in that frog, exactly?”

“I'm not sure, I thought it was low level but if it has power, even sealed as it is…”

“Huh. Interesting.” 

“That was a barrier spell too, and not a weak one either.”

-

The door is only the beginning. There's a lot to fix in his hideout, from the rotten wood to the peeling paint to the cracked stone. 

Some things are impossible for him to repair: the crumbling pillars in the front would need either a master carver or a really good doton jutsu. He cleans them up as best he can anyways, wiping away the dirt and clearing away some of the debris. Although he can, he decides against scraping the moss off, since he likes the look of the greenery on the old stones.

Other things are easier, once he gets the materials. He doesn't need to know a lot about building to replace the rotten floorboards, with Gama-chan’s magic glue he just needs to place new wood down and get a smooth, lacquered floor. It takes a lot of time to tear away the old wood and replace it, but in the end it’s worth it. 

It's a mismatch of colour and texture, since he has to use wood from a whole bunch of stores, but it works. And once he rescues some tatami mats it's even somewhat aesthetically pleasing.

He can't do much for the walls, or the roof, but he starts hanging cool looking mats and fabrics when he comes across them in his raids, as well as some of his own drawings.

He spends one whole day weeding the overgrown garden and investigating the surviving plants. He recognises a few from class, and a few more from the orphanage’s own garden, but some of them he can't even determine whether they’re a weed or not. He keeps as much as he can, since he feels bad uprooting so many plants anyways. It's not like weeds are inherently bad, they just get a bad rep from all the stuck up adults.

Out of everything the painting is the easiest. He makes sure to do a big prank right beforehand, one that requires a few paint bombs at the academy, to disguise the amount of paint he takes. The paint itself he finds in the academy’s storage shed, which means it's a little duller than he wanted, but they had orange so that's all that matters.

As punishment he has to repaint all the walls in class, but at least that gives him access to a bunch of buckets and brushes. And no one looks twice when he comes back to the orphanage covered in paint, even when that paint doesn’t match the colour of the academy walls. 

In all, it takes three months to get the clearing fixed up. He tries taking his time with it, since the more pranks he does against the shop keeps the more paranoid the shinobi on duty are, but it still feels like a long time. By the time he determines that there’s not a whole lot more he can do, the school year is over and he’s on break. 

A lot of his classmates take the week to either study for the new year, or help their civilian parents at work. Naruto, who neither has parents nor the motivation to study, spends it at his hideaway. In fact he spend so much time there that he doesn’t go back to the orphanage at all unless it’s for food or to sleep, and even then he spends a few nights sleeping on his new floors. 

He figures if he spends enough nights eventually the matron won't even notice when he doesn't comes back, and he can move in. He’s already moved all his things, even some of his blankets to pad the flooring. 

All in all, things are good. 

—

“This can’t continue.” 

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not? He’s taking care of the shrine, renewed what was lost, even updated the wards with that frog of his. He’s practically—”

“What? A priest? Good. It’s been too long.” 

“He’s a child.” 

“All the better, we’ll be able to train him up right.”

“...I suppose.”

—

Ever since he’s been sleeping at the hideout, Naruto’s started having strange dreams. Sometimes when he wakes all he remembers is an odd feeling, something off-kilter. Other times he wakes with the image of shifting shadows and a bell-like voice talking to him. 

Sometimes he sees something that resembles a dim sewer, light coming from behind him. No matter what he does, he never manages to turn around before waking up. 

He doesn’t think much of it, besides complaining to Gama-chan that it’s making him sleepy in class. Dreams are supposed to be weird, right? 

“Idiot,” Gama-chan grumbles, hanging from his arms. The frog’s been more and more talkative lately. It’s also started following him to school. He’s gotten a few sneers for it, but it’s strangely good at staying out of sight and dodging any attempts at sabotage. 

“Uzumaki! Pay attention!” the teacher yells, glaring at him from the front of the class. This one is a new one, with white hair and a sour face. He doesn’t seem to like him very much. 

Naruto waits until the man turns around again to stick his tongue out. It’s not his fault that he can’t follow along, having ‘lost’ his textbook. And by lost, he means some of the older students threw it in the river. 

He takes out his crayon stubs and some paper instead, idly doodling animals in the corners. He’s gotten good at drawing frogs, and things like cats and dogs, but some of the other ones end up looking like lopsided omelette art. He’s trying to draw a bird when he feels something poke him in the side. He turns towards the source and sees one of his classmates. 

“Huh?” 

“Can you draw a fox,” the girl asks, leaning in. 

He has to stop himself from covering his papers, used as he is to the anything of his getting ruined quick once people notice. The novelty of someone actually talking to him makes him forget his caution though.

“Of course!” He doesn’t actually know how to draw a fox, but he figures it can’t be too different from drawing a dog. He makes the ears a little bigger and gives it squinty eyes, and for good measure writes the word fox under it. It’s a little shaky, since he doesn’t have the best handwriting, but he’s pretty sure it’s readable. He uses his cherished orange crayon too. 

In fact, the fox looks almost like—

“Uzumaki!” the teacher yells, this time from right in front of his desk. “What have I told you about paying attention? Stop playing games.” 

Mizuki-sensei snatches the paper right from Naruto’s hands, crinkling the edges and smudging some of the wax. 

“Hey!” He protests. Normally he wouldn’t argue too much with the teacher, since it never does any good, but this wasn’t something of his anymore. Someone actually asked him for him to draw it. 

“Don’t even try it! You should be learning about the shinobi rules, not whatever—”

Naruto watches as the man’s eyes narrow as he takes in the drawings in his hand. He can practically taste the distaste that oozes out, turning what was once just a sour face into a true rotten lime. 

“Not whatever this is supposed to be,” Mizuki-sensei sneers, disgust coating his words. He abruptly crumbles the paper and turns sharply towards the front. 

“No more drawing! Get to work.” 

“Ah man,” Naruto moans, watching the retreating back and listening to the giggles of the class. The girl next to him is resolutely looking away. 

Naruto’s left looking at his empty desk and the glinty eyes of Gama-chan. For a second he almost thought the shape of the drawing was similar to the pillars in front of his hideout, but that makes no sense. Why would people carve foxes into stones? There’s not even any in Konoha. 

—

The library isn’t a place Naruto has much experience with. The librarians don’t like him any better than the other adults, but as long as he doesn’t try to leave with any books they let him stay as long as he likes. He tends not to, however, since he’s not really a fan of reading and a lot of the books and scrolls are dusty and make him sneeze. 

He starts in the kids section, the one place that he knows for sure he’ll be able to read from. The first few books don’t help, beyond showing him that his doodle was pretty accurate after all. He doesn’t find anything specific however, despite the fact that there’s plenty books about dogs and fish and cats and birds. 

Nothing about foxes, however.

He’s just starting to get frustrated when the glint of something shiny catches his attention. It’s hiding behind a collection of children’s poems, and it takes a few seconds before he can pry it from the where it’s lodged against the bookcase. 

Once freed it turns out to be an old scroll with silver ends. It’s pretty small, which explains why it got stuck in the first place, but it also doesn’t look like something that belongs in the children’s section. 

Curiosity has him unrolling it, eyes scanning for a title. It’s hard to make out, the ink faded and strangely reflective, but he eventually sounds it out. 

“The Spirit Foxes of Fire Country? Huh.” 

It doesn’t sound like something that will give him the information he wants, but it’s also the only thing he’s found that’s just about foxes and not just a generic animal glossary. Better yet, since it’s obviously been here for a while and obviously not important enough for the librarians to find, he can sneak it out without fear of being banned. 

He sneaks it into his pockets and gathers up the rest of the books. It takes a few minutes to put it all away, but he makes sure to neaten up anyways. There’s always the chance he’ll get in trouble if people think he’s up to no good. 

It’s about a twenty minute walk from the library to his hideout, and it’s already starting to get dark out, so he hurries. 

Gama-chan watches him silently. 

—

“—the disaster led to a mass e-exodus of k-kitsune into the lands of men, starting the first of many such pil-pilgrimages. Although most of them would eventually r-return back to their lands once word came of its safety, a few settled in what would e-eventually end up being the Land of Fire.” Naruto lowers the scroll a little, nose scrunching in frustration. The text is hard to read, and he still hasn’t figured out why people would carve foxes into stone pillars. 

He’s trying not to let that stop him, but it’s hard, and there’s not much light to read by at his hideaway. He needs to find some candles or something for the nights he sleeps over. 

“What does exodus even mean?” he complains, letting the scroll fall even more. 

“It means they ran away,” Gama-chan says idly. 

“All of them?” Naruto asks, suspicious. That would be a lot of foxes, if what the text is saying is true, and he’s never seen a single one in his life. 

“Probably,” Gama-chan says, seemingly not paying attention. “If I remember right they’re really into loyalty, despite not being pack animals.” 

“You knew kitsune, Gama-chan?” Naruto asks, putting the scroll away for good. The frog plush is sitting a few feet away, facing the entrance of the clearing. 

“...yeah, sure. Knew a bunch of them, once apon a time. Thought they’d all left though, which bares the question of what you two are doing here,” the frog says, something strange in its voice. 

“Huh?” Naruto blinks at the toy. “Who?” 

From around the corner, seemingly appearing behind the crumbling stone pillars, two white figures emerge. Their fur is almost translucent, wispy like smoke, and their long snouts are curved up in eerie grins. Even without ever having seen one before, Naruto has no doubt that these are foxes. 

Foxes the size of horses, with split tails, but foxes for sure. 

The only difference between the two is colour of the pearls around their necks, one a silvery white and the other a matte black. 

“We could say the same,” the one in black says. Its voice is deep and rumbling, like thunder. 

“Pah!” Gama-chan snaps, stuffing practically vibrating. “What? Can’t you tell?” 

“Your form hides you well, frog,” the one in white says, tail twitching. Unlike its twin, this one sounds like twinkling bells. Very familiar bells.

“Hey!” Naruto cries, pointing at both foxes. “You’ve been in my dreams!” 

The two foxes swing their attention his way, smiles widening when when they see his face. There’s confusion, of course, but not really any shock. Naruto probably should be shocked by two huge foxes that talk, but Gama-chan’s been talking ever since Naruto found it and he’s seen some of the Inuzuka around the village. 

“Took you long enough, we were starting to think you were spiritually blind, despite this thing sticking to you,” the black-beaded one says. Both of them advance a little more, ignoring Gama-chan completely. 

They turn as one, going opposite ways so that their legs are brushing his shoulders, heads still tilted down towards him. 

“But here you are, finally strong enough to see us for real. I think it’s about time for introductions, don’t you?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays and all that jazz

“I’m not sure why I gotta clean it if I’m the only one here,” Naruto sulks. It’s not like he’s kept the shrine messy, he might not be the tidiest person but he’s had to learn how to pick up after himself, it’s just that his standards aren’t the same as the foxes’ almost militant expectations.

“A shrine should reflect the deity it embodies. It is a matter of respect,” Kiyoko says with a lupine grin. The fox is reclining on top of the shrine roof and lazily staring down at him, tails swishing in an invisible breeze. 

“Not to mention, now we don’t have to do it,” Shigetoshi agrees from his spot in the shade. Naruto puffs out his cheeks and pouts at them, the handle of the broom digging into his chin. 

“That’s not fair!” 

At his spot on front steps Gama-chan snorts, and Naruto turns his attention to the plush. 

“Why doesn’t Gama-chan have to clean?” he complains, ignoring the very real fact that Gama-chan is only about ten centimeters tall and lacking in opposable thumbs. Gama-chan doesn’t answer, which Naruto was pretty much expecting. 

“If you hurry it up boy, by the time dinner is ready you’ll be done. The faster you do it the faster we can move onto more interesting things,” Kiyoko says, arching her back in a long stretch. 

Naruto perks up. More interesting things means chakra. Sometimes also stuff like history and theology and manners and a bunch of other boring things, but he can usually coax at least a little jutsu theory and practice. Except the foxes don’t call it jutsu, and it’s nothing like the shinobi arts they learn in the academy. 

But still, chakra! 

He straightens from his slouch and starts sweeping vigorously at the dirt-covered stone. It’s hard work, since there’s years of neglect to try and scrape away, but his broom is made out of stiff bristles and he has energy if not strength. 

The shrine—which he now knows is what his hideout is called—has really changed these past few months, and it’s not just because of him. The more he repairs and cleans and works on it, the stronger the protections surrounding it, and the stronger the guardians it houses are. And Kiyoko and Shigetoshi have not been idle, even if they spend most of their time lazing in the sun. The garden is thriving, the shrine itself now waterproof and standing straight, the well once again in use. And then there's—

“Naru-chan!” a small voice pipes out, and he looks down at the little spirit tugging at the hem of his pants. He squats down to get a closer look. 

“What is it?” The spirit has a thin, almost paper-like body and large, unblinking eyes, which makes it hard to determine its expression. 

“Kiyoko-sama has instructed me to get you proper attire for attending to the shrine—when you’re done cleaning, of course,” the little servant says, holding an arm up in clear invitation. Naruto gently picks it up and places it on his shoulder, where the tiny hands quickly latch onto the collar of his ratty shirt. 

“Where are you going to find something like that?” he asks curiously, going back to sweeping, although less enthusiastically in deference to the small body clutching at him. 

“Oh no, we will not be finding it, we will make it!” The spirit says, making Naruto pause for a second. For some reason that sounds slightly ominous. Considering most spirits’ clothing—or lack of—he’s not sure he wants to know what spirit-made attire would look like. For all he knows it will decide to get up and walk away when he’s not looking. 

“And Hibiki-san needs to craft you some geta so you can stop tracking mud all over the place in those ratty shoes of yours,” the spirit continues, and Naruto lets the chatter lull him into a sort of meditative doze, arms still working at clearing the courtyard but mind drifting away.

—

“He is not doing too poorly,” Shigetoshi says with some satisfaction, nudging her with his snout. Kiyoko snorts and pushes back against him, letting him scent her for a second before swatting at his face.

“You are just saying that because he brings you tofu,” she grumbles, but it is without heat. Below them the child scampers around, small helper-spirits running between his legs and causing more mischief than aid. The boy attracts the denizens of the forests like he’s the honey to their flies, which just proves to her his strength. He is strong in magic, this one. And it has to do with the soul that resides in his belly. 

“He is doing better than the last priest, and he is just a child,” Shigetoshi retorts, but Kiyoko just rolls her eyes. Shigetoshi didn’t like the last priest because he was a stuck up old man from the capitol, weak in chi and stingy on the offerings. The rambunctious antics of a child suit the white-pearl fox much better, considering his own level of maturity.

“He is not a priest yet,” she says instead.

Shigetoshi laughs, tongue sticking out of his snout and eyes squinted shut. 

“And he won’t ever be a priest officially, not the way the humans think of it. There’s no one here to officiate such a learning,” he agrees, “but he is still our priest.” 

Kiyoko grunts, paws delicately crossed as she eyes her companion. That sort of possessive leaning bodes ill for any attempts to redirect the child. Not that she much wants to—her home is much repaired, the enchantments strong again, and she can feel a stirring in the shrine itself that says divine attention is once again building. She would be foolish to try and get rid of him now. But she does not much like the idea of Shigetoshi getting attached either. Humans are so quick to die. 

“Have you gotten him to pray yet?” she says instead, and Shigetoshi’s groan tells her all she needs to know. 

“He still can’t remember the wording,” he sighs, fur shifting as he shrugs, “and the language is a bit too sophisticated for him. The dialect has been lost, it seems.” 

Kiyoko hums in agreement. They had been sleeping for a long time, in between moments of dealing with their holdings and the neighbouring spirits. The world of humans has moved on without them. The enchantments on the shrine did what they could, but it was lucky that the boy stumbled upon it when he did. Soon even those would have failed completely, and the shrine turned to dust. Of course, she does not believe much in luck or coincidence. 

“He will learn,” she muses, laying her head down on her paws. Shigetoshi perks up. 

“Speaking of learning, oi, kid!” he shouts down, and Kiyoko has to dodge the tails that go flailing in his excitement. “Finish up and I’ll show you how to breathe fire.” 

Kiyoko jerks up. 

“You cannot be thinking of teaching him foxfire!” she snaps, incredulous. Except that sounds just like something the other fox would do.

“Why not? He’s going to want to learn some sort of battle technique. He’s going to be a shinobi!” Shigetoshi shrugs back. 

“But he isn’t—you said it yourself, he’s our priest,” she huffs, “not a mercenary.” 

“Mm, so unless we give him something better—something just as cool and powerful and respect-worthy—he’s just going to continue to run back to his human teachers and his human military leaders.”

Kiyoko pauses, fur relaxing a little as she thinks about it. Sometimes she forgets that although Shigetoshi is immature and frustrating and a bit of an idiot, he’s also extremely clever and a champion tactician. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d gotten in trouble with some of the higher foxes back home, he’d have been assigned somewhere of much more value long ago.

“You mean to turn him away from his village,” she muses, “or at least the military aspect of it. Give him just enough power to feel important, give him attention and nourishment and friends, teach him respect and duty—”

“They do not want him anyways. He comes here with bruises and hunger pains and sadness in his scent, yet he still desires be their comrade and become their leader. He is loyal, yes, but he is also misguided. I’m simply redirecting the course,” Shigetoshi grins with self-satisfaction evident in his eyes. Kiyoko shakes her head. 

“You are too troublesome for your own good, dear brother. I like it.” She nudges him back so he falls on his hind legs and jumps down from the shrine, landing with a small thump on the now somewhat-clear stone. The boy is watching them with excited eyes, but he is learning, and thus not screaming his head off at the thought of learning ‘jutsu’.

“Well,” she asks him with an arched brow, “are you ready or not?”

—

It’s not immediately obvious. Why should it be? The only people Naruto interacts with positively are the Hokage and a few of his ANBU. Everyone else would rather not think about what he gets up to, as long as it’s not more pranks. 

So the first couple weeks, when he’s absent except when at the academy or the orphanage, no one thinks it’s odd. Even after the first month, when he’s gone from his bed more often than not, no one says anything. At most there’s the vague unease of it maybe being the lead up to a big prank, but even then there’s few of them who really think about it. 

And the Hokage is busy, busy enough that usually he only sees the boy once every couple months. His ANBU tail the boy only near the anniversary of his birth, and so rarely see him outside the presence of the Hokage himself. 

Which means by the time anyone pays any real attention, it’s much too late. 

—

At first it’s new clothing. Thick weaved silk, simple enough for a child but just slightly too well-made for an orphan. White and tan and unadorned—except for the patterned yakuta that start showing up too. And then he switches out of the ratty sneakers into low geta. All simple, practical outfits—too old-fashioned to have been a gift or a purchase of his own. It is not the style one would expect him to choose, even if he did have the money for it. 

Even that is ignorable, however, especially since most people are used to ignoring him anyways. It is not as if shinobi don’t have their share of eccentricities, even those who are just shinobi-in-training. 

The sudden interest in some of the more isolated places of the village—such as the few civilian cemeteries and the shinobi memorials— is rationalised as the brooding work of a lonely boy. Since he’s spending less time in the public eye, and therefore not bothering anybody with his presence, no one says anything about it. Even if a few of them privately think it’s rather creepy.

The sudden increase in vocabulary—ignored. The better marks on tests—written off as cheating. The visible weight gain of a high-energy child suddenly getting enough food—the orphanage must have gotten a budget increase. All of it is pushed aside.

If fact, if it weren’t for the fact that he starts missing classes at the academy, more than usual and even during the fighting portions of it, it might have continued to go one unremarked. But there’s a large push to see the Jinchūriki made into a weapon, even if it is an inept one. And the Hokage himself desires to see the boy follow his father’s steps. 

“And how long has this been going on?” Sarutobi asks wearily, fingers steepled in front of him. His ANBU are not so undisciplined as to fidget, but he can tell they want to. It is a rather large oversight on their part after all, considering their duties include keeping track of the village’s worst kept secret. But they’ve been worn thin these last few years, after the Uchiha massacre, and more and more of them have had to go on missions to fill the gap. 

“About seven months,” Rat says promptly. 

“And what do we know so far?” Sarutobi asks, leaning back with a sigh and reaching for his pipe. 

Rat steps back and lets Cat take over.

“There’s been a slow progression of absence from the target’s place of residence, culminating in an average of only two nights a week. Caretakers appear to be aware of this. Insufficient data to determine sleeping area the rest of the time. Current attendance at academy sits around fifty three percent, seventy percent of that being combat classes. Main areas of interest when not at either locations; ramen shop, fried tofu vender, library, training grounds.”

“Infiltration likelihood?” Sarutobi asks, even though he already knows the answer. Sure enough—

“Negligible,” Cat responds. It’s not as serious of a concern as it used to be, when the boy was younger and a swap more likely, but it is good to see his shinobi are still doing due diligence. 

“And no one has been seen interacting with him out of the usual?” 

Cat nods decisively. 

“All contact has been in the bounds of his already established routine.” 

Sarutobi brings the pipe to his lips with a sigh. A sudden shift of personality without visible outside factors is worrisome—but it isn’t that sudden if you look at the previous months. This gradual shift is almost more concerning, because it means they are missing something. A motivation or influence that is not readily apparent from the outside. 

“And what have his teachers said?” he asks slowly, thinking. 

“He appears to have calmed down quite a bit, although there are still reports of mischief. His relationship to his classmates seems to have stayed the same. Better grades when he does show up, with a marked change in reading comprehension. Shinobi skills have stayed the same.” 

Sarutobi closes his eyes, mind shifting through the report like he’ll uncover the cause through sheer willpower alone. But even his years of experience mean nothing when there’s not enough information at his fingertips. Luckily there’s an easy solution to that.

“Cat,” he starts, waiting for a straightening of posture to show her attention, “accept an attachment to the academy for specialised training. Your mission will be to find genin with acceptable mentalities for infiltration. Secondary mission will be the observation of Naruto. Do you understand?” 

He receives a nod, and he leaves the details for later when the paperwork goes through. He bites at his pipe and then smiles. It is not necessarily a nice smile. 

“And Dog,” he says, able to see the flinch in the named ANBU only through careful practiced observation, “In light of the orphanages inability to keep track of on of their wards, I’m authorising him to be moved to a secure apartment in the Shinobi district with the necessary funds. Move into the neighbouring suite and keep an eye on him, try and get into his good graces.” 

Kakashi doesn’t do something as disrespectful as to argue—can’t with the mask still on and his ANBU persona still in the forefront—but Sarutobi knows he wants to. As much as the man grieves for his sensei and wishes to do right by his son, until such a time comes that he’s forced to confront those feelings he’ll never do so. 

There are more practical reasons for assigning him to such a position, notably that it will take him out of the active duty roster, which he desperately needs. The last thing Sarutobi wants at this point is to lose another great shinobi through lack of care. And no one can accuse him of being sentimental when he’s assigning what is arguably his most lethal ANBU operative to the case. 

“Dismissed,” he says around the mouth of his pipe, grinning to himself at the synchronised departures. No smoke, no sound, just shadows melting back into nothing. And Danzō thinks he has the monopoly on shadow operatives. 

—

There’s a shinobi waiting for Naruto when he gets back from the shrine. He has white hair, a slanted hitai-ate that covers one eye, and a good ten feet of space around him that the caretakers refuse to enter. This is odd, since the only shinobi he ever sees at the orphanage are genin doing D-ranks, and never one high-ranked enough to give them pause. 

“Uzumaki Naruto?” the shinobi asks, with a lazy and slow drawl like he doesn’t much care what the answer is. Combined with the slouched posture, the half-shut eye, and the orange book clasped loosely in his hands, it makes him seem one step away from falling sleeping standing up. 

“That’s me!” he says brightly, undeterred by the man’s unenthusiastic demeanor. Just because Shigetoshi and Kiyoko have cooled some of his fire doesn’t mean he no longer feels the urge to shoot out his name just to have people pay him attention.

“Great, I’ve been waiting here since seven.” 

Naruto looks at the sky—darkened and still—and then back to the shinobi. It has to at least be around ten now. He doesn’t quite ask why the man would be so stupid to wait that long, but something in his face probably says it for him.

“The academy ends at five today, I figured being late by two hours would have been plenty of time,” the shinobi says with a shrug, and Naruto stares at him some more. He was purposefully late, in hopes of what, exactly? 

“Well, now that you’re here, let’s get moving,” the shinobi says, straightening slightly and walking past him. 

“Wait, what?” Naruto sputters, turning to follow him with his eyes. 

“Chop chop, we’re late enough as it is.”

Naruto stares at him some more as he continues down the orphanage’s front lawn, and tries to catch the eye of one of the loitering attendants in hopes of getting some answers. Unsuccessful, and with curiousity just mounting, he scrambles to catch up. 

—

Kakashi wouldn’t say that he’s nervous. He’s not sure he still has the emotional capacity to feel something like that anymore, if he’s honest. He’s feeling something, at least. A twinge of disquiet. 

His sensei’s blue eyes stare at him with an intense focus he’d thought he’d lost forever, and combined with the graceful but energetic way the boy walks, it’s almost unnerving how much he looks like his father. 

He keeps his copy of Icha Icha in front of his nose so he can observe the boy without seeming to. Like the reports say, he’s wearing high quality clothing with little to none embellishments, and his geta appear to be comfortable and well-worn. Where he got either is a mystery, although the gossip at base seems to be tipping more towards a donation from one of father’s old teammates, and not something like a spy trying to woo him to another nation.

The boy is quieter than he’d expected too. Oh, he talks a lot, chattering away without any real care to the fact that Kakashi isn’t answering, but he’s not being obnoxious about it. Strange, considering all the reports paint him as a rambunctious troublemaker with attention seeking behaviour. 

“—where are we going anyways?” Naruto asks, hands clasped behind his head. He appears calm in face of what basically amounts to a sanctioned kidnapping. 

Kakashi hums and turns the page. 

“Your new home,” he says finally, when his silence only wins him the expectant eyes of his dead-sensei. 

Naruto blinks at him. They pause in front of a somewhat run-down apartment complex that’s been deserted. Kakashi eyes the security—the suites have been bought already, and most of the inhabitants that will move in are retired ANBU or those who need a space outside of the barracks for some reason or another. There’s invisible seals on the walls and windows, and he sees at least two of Cat’s cats sunning themselves in the yard. It’s just isolated enough that strangers will be noticed, just hidden enough in the normal bustle of the village that no one will be able to notice as being a place of interest, and there will be so many ANBU crawling in and out that it’ll probably be the most well defensible building outside of the Hokage tower itself. 

“Well here we are,” he says. Naruto is still staring up at the brick building in surprise. 

Kakashi fishes out a keyring and hands it over, tucking his Icha Icha away at the same time. 

“First one is the front door key, don’t lose it. The one with the fish charm is your door—suite 263, on the second floor to the right. Last one is the mailbox, you’ll probably not need to check that until you’re older and paying your own bills,” he says when the boy turns back to him in confusion. 

“Uhh,” Naruto says, a furrow appearing in his brow. 

Kakashi feels a twinge in his gut that he doesn’t bother to examine. He ignores the awkwardness with force of mind. 

“The Hokage is giving you a stipend for living until you make genin or wash out, whichever,” he explains, shoving his hands into his pockets, forcing himself to loosen the line of his shoulders. Why anybody chose him as the first contact for a kid—not even a genin, someone who’s young enough that he still lisps a little—he doesn’t know, except he does and it all comes back down to Minato. 

Naruto’s eyes go wide. 

“It’s mine?” he yelps, clutching at the keys like he’s just realised what Kakashi is saying. 

“Technically you’re only renting it from the Hokage’s trust, but close enough. I’ll be in suite 264, so if anyone tries kicking you out I’ve been told to bring it directly to his attention.” He doesn’t bother adding that he’s supposed to be looking after the kid—whatever that means when you’re talking about Kakashi and children—in the hopes that maybe Naruto will forget about his new neighbour and Kakashi won’t have to deal with him at all. 

“Cool!” Naruto yells, turning to run up the steps and more than likely wreak havoc in his new apartment. Kakashi watches him go tripping up the stairs and sighs. 

He nods to one of the ANBU on duty and follows the kid into the building. Might as well get comfortable in what’s going to be his new home as well. At least he has more to move—Naruto didn’t even have any clothing worth picking up but the ones he’s currently wearing back at the orphanage, which begs the question as to where he’s keeping the other outfits he’s been noted to wear.

He hears the boy go stomping up the stairs and is about to follow him when he feels a hand clasp him on the shoulder. He only stops his first reaction—kunai to the face of whoever owns said hand—because he recognises the chakra. 

“That him?” Fujimoto Kaede asks, wizened face scrutinising his own with something shadowed in her eyes. The old woman is retired—supposedly—but she never fails to make Kakashi feel like he’s back on the ANBU proving grounds. Even without her right leg, he gets the feeling she could kill him if she doesn’t like his answer. 

“That’s him,” he agrees, waiting for whatever verdict the old ANBU trainer decides on. She’d been old when he’d first met her—eyes creased with something more than age—but she’s practically ancient now. One of the oldest shinobi that he knows of, including the Hokage. 

“Hmm,” Kaede squints into the gloom of the apartment building like she can see through the floors and into the suite Naruto is no doubt already ransacking. 

“Keep him contained, alright?” she finally says, and Kakashi can feel a tightness in his chest loosen a little. Practically a blessing from the strict kunoichi, not that he expected much else. She’s always had a soft spot for orphans, no matter how ostracized they are from society. 

“And make sure his spirit guardians don’t make trouble either,” she declares, unclenching her fingers from his jacket and shuffling away, cane making no sound on the creaking floors. 

Kakashi blinks at her retreating back. 

“...What?


End file.
